This invention relates to a machine for machining or processing a conveyable material, in particular a pourable or pasty mass or a loose material, wherein the machine has at least one outlet section with at least one outlet, through which the conveyable material to be machined or processed can be transported along a conveying direction.
The material is transported and machined or processed in such machines. In viscous or pasty materials, e.g., chocolate, dough or thermoplastics/elastomers, transport takes place via an extruder, for example. Depending on the material, machining or processing takes place in mixers, rolls, mills or extruders. In this case, the material is subjected to shearing and/or expansion, thereby becoming thoroughly mixed. In the case of emulsions (e.g., chocolate) or suspensions (wet milling), the emulsified or suspended particles are comminuted. Most often, the objective is to more or less lastingly changing the rheological properties of the material by altering the size distribution of emulsified or suspended particles, the degree to which structures are cross-linked or the average length of molecules. Such changes are produced through exposure to mechanical, thermal, chemical or enzymatic factors.
A lot of energy and in part correspondingly large machines are required for the transport and machining/processing of viscous or pasty masses, but also for the transport of loose material.
EP 0 612 603 describes a system and a method for facilitating the flow of an elastomeric materials through a nozzle. For this purpose, a nozzle of an extruder and, accordingly, a passage formed in the nozzle, are vibrated by means of ultrasound, as a result of which the friction between the material and the passage is decreased. The vibration is produced by means of an electric circuit, which applies an electric vibrational signal to a piezoelectric converter. This signal can then be transformed into mechanical vibrations, which are transferred to the passage.
SU 856 833 A1 and SU 1 445 676 A1 disclose a similar system. Here also, one or more vibration emitters are provided, which are mounted at the inner wall of an extruder housing also in the discharge region of the extruder.
GB 1,171,735 A1 describes a spin packing, which is disposed upstream from a nozzle plate, with which polymers are spun into filaments. For this purpose, the polymer melt must be pumped through the holes of the nozzle plate. Balls are contained in the spin packing and form a ball bed, which ensures equalization of the melt flow over the whole of the nozzle plate, so that the residence time of the polymer melt in the whole of the spinning head is as uniform as possible over the surface of the nozzle plate and, above all, so that dead regions between the nozzle holes, which are relatively far apart in comparison to their diameter, are avoided.
For all of these known solutions of the state of the art, vibrations for affecting the rheological properties of the fluid are induced only over the surface of a vibrating nozzle or of a different vibrating region in the interior of a housing in a viscous or viscoelastic fluid (suspension, emulsion, melt of a thermoplastic material, elastomer).
GB 1,171,735 A admittedly mentions two balls in a spin packing. However, these balls form a “ball bed” in the spin packing, which, instead of vibrating, only brings about an equalization of the residence time of the fluid flowing through the ball bed. Every effort is made not to interfere in any way and, especially, and not by vibrations, with the very unstable spinning process.